Abby Glover
End of Module Evaluation - OUIL 504 Process and Production
For me this module was a challenging one. I had to learn how to do a few important processes for the first time, including the processes used for animation and screen print; Everything was new to me, the whole printing process as well as new software like dragon frame and after effects. They are quite difficult processes to get used to, and are also quite long processes to carry out in order to get decent final outcomes. This is especially because there are a lot of unexpected problems that can arise, as they did for me.
Both my animations and prints took longer than expected to produce, and I think that this is because I didn't have a large enough understanding of the processes and what I could do, even when I looked at existing work (I didn't think it would be possible to produce such a high standard of work on my first try) so for this reason, I felt really stuck on how to approach the briefs for a while.
This became stressful, and made it harder to be motivated.
I tried to develop my ideas in a way that would allow me to use more processes/ content that I like using. For moving pictures I tried planning stings that would allow me to use digital painting, in order to develop my existing skills in the process by getting more practise at it. This benefitted me because I think it did help me learn to paint faster, plus I liked the outcomes when they were not moving images. When it came to moving elements of them, it became more difficult to get on with, (again, because I found the software harder to understand) and also because I don’t think I’d researched enough ideas to get an understanding of the many different approaches that could have been taken. With this in mind, I do think that I have capitalised on my existing skills in image making by using them for different processes. These processes are ones I knew nothing about before, so I'm proud of myself for completing them despite not being entirely happy with the final outcomes. This is because I could have potentially made my animations look more finished.
Screen print has been a step up for me also - I feel that my line drawings are stronger, as well as now being rather confident in the screen print process (I'm no longer intimidated by the print room!)
Both studio briefs 2 and 3 pushed me to organise my time more effectively than usual, too, because of the higher potential for things to go wrong I felt like I needed to be more control over the time I had – this will benefit me in future projects because I’ve learned that having enough time to fix things is important. For instance, I struggled with preparing screens; they took me most of a day to prepare, and problems did arise in the emulsion stage – It would come off the screen in the wrong places, and run into the designs if it hadn’t dried properly, so I had to work around this by re exposing images. In one case I had to intricately tape up the holes in the design, as I had lost a couple of drawings after this happened to a screen towards the end, so I had to use the bad screen because I couldn’t re expose. I feel that the blogging side of things went okay, because I learned last year that keeping on top of documentation is useful and it prevents me from being overwhelmed by work, and I can keep evaluating my progress as I go.
I wish I'd done more research, because it would have helped my ideas progress further. I believe this is because I get scared and make snap decisions without taking enough time to go through options – this is one of my main flaws as a practitioner, and it’s what I really need to try and work on in the next project.
If I had the time again, (as well as more research,) I’d test ideas as soon as possible; especially for my moving images. I was too intimidated by the new process and didn’t believe that I could do anything well, so I tried to ignore it instead of improve.
I’d also have made my work more cohesive. I think that my screen prints might seem a bit irrelevant to my project – because I was going for a general sense of ‘magic’ rather than making it explicitly linked to my author Neil Gaiman. In the future I shall make work that makes sense contextually as well as being about something I’d like to produce. Saying this, I am really happy with my screen prints (for a first attempt!) So I still think they were a personal success.
